UK: Head of MI5 warns
of the need to erode civil liberties in the fight against terrorismBelow is the text of a speech given by the Director-General
of MI5 (the UK's Security Service) in the Hague, Netherlands
on 1 September 2005. The message, and the language, are very
familiar: "the world has changed" (Tony Blair,
UK Prime Minister and Charles Clarke, Home Secretary") and
the need to protect our "way of life" (Tony
Blair, Javier Solana) against terrorist attacks. She argues in
favour of mandatory data retention of traffic data on all communications,
hints at the need to introduce plea-bargaining (under "intelligence
interviews") and that intelligence is often fragile, too
"fragile" to bring before a court but that action is
required.

"I think that this is a central dilemma, how to protect
our citizens within the rule of law when intelligence does not
amount to clear cut evidence and when it is fragile. We also,
of course, and I repeat in both our countries and within the
EU value civil liberties and wish to do nothing to damage these
hard-fought for rights. But the world has changed and there needs
to be a debate on whether some erosion of what we all value may
be necessary to improve the chances of our citizens not being
blown apart as they go about their daily lives."

"THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST THREAT AND THE DILEMMAS
IN COUNTERING IT"

SPEECH BY THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE SECURITY SERVICE,
DAME ELIZA MANNINGHAM-BULLER,
AT THE RIDDERZAAL, BINNENHOF, THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS, 1
SEPTEMBER 2005

"I am delighted to be here to celebrate the 60th Birthday
of the AIVD. The friendship between the AIVD and my Service,
the British Security Service - commonly known as MI5 - pre-dates
even those 60 years.

I quote from a note in our files from 1946: "The friendly
relationship, established during the war, with the Dutch Security
Service in London continues to operate with very satisfactory
results". In celebrating the birthday, I am here, not only
to represent the UK, but as a symbol of all the friends of this
Service and there are many throughout the world.

Perhaps that is my first message. One of the strengths we
have in facing a global, international threat is long-standing
intelligence relationships of trust and co-operation in Europe
and further afield, created and nurtured in the case of the UK
and the Netherlands over 60 years. That relationship has been
tested in adversity. It is strongly-forged and, for someone with
a career such as mine, a professional intelligence officer for
over 30 years, the relationship means a great deal.

One of my first visits overseas as a young officer was to
The Hague and, after a fascinating trip to the Mauritshuis, I
remember very well meeting a Dutch officer of this Service who
had been in the resistance in the Second World War while still
a teenager. He had been sent to Buchenwald where he had survived
because he worked as a Russian interpreter. His career was focussed
first on fighting the threat from fascism then, by the time I
met him, on countering terrorism.

Although I was born three years after the war and I do not
speak Russian or, indeed, Dutch, and my experience was slight
whilst his was extensive, we spoke a common language as we do
today. Then and now the AIVD and the British Security Service
understand each other and agree on the role of a modern, professional
security service in a democracy. That role is to defend that
democracy from substantial threats to its security and to protect,
as far as possible, the way of life of its people. So, when Sybrand
van Hulst invited me to speak on this occasion about the threat
of international terrorism and the dilemmas in countering it,
I had no hesitation in accepting his invitation.

I accepted the invitation to speak before the terrorist attacks
in London in July. It is significant that we received from the
AIVD an early message of sympathy and support, followed by constructive
help. My Service received many offers of help from our friends
around the world and our friends just across the English Channel.
That is a second message. Key to countering this problem is international
co-operation.

The attacks in London were a shock, and my Service and the
police were disappointed that we had not been able to prevent
them. But we were not altogether surprised because of our understanding
of the threat which is what I wish to discuss next, although
in some ways it feels unnecessary to describe it. We have seen
so many manifestations of it both before 9/11, for example in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and since then in Casablanca, Madrid
and Bali and many other places as well of course as here in the
Netherlands.

Those of us in the intelligence community are also aware of
many more attacks thwarted by good intelligence and police work,
and through international co-operation. Those successes have
usually been quiet ones. But we are judged by what we do not
know and did not prevent. I shall come back to that point later
when describing the nature of intelligence.

Al Qaida represents the first truly global terrorist threat.
The extremist ideology it sponsors has spread round the world
and seeped into and infected individuals and groups almost everywhere.
The attacks of 9/11 inspired new generations, discontented with
Western policies and ways of life, to seek to emulate, so far
generally on a more modest scale, those horrendous attacks in
New York and Washington we recall so well.

The key components of those attacks were a major loss of life,
economic damage across the globe and the preparedness of 19 young
men to commit suicide: it was a graphic illustration of what
terrorism can achieve. And those inspired by Al Qaida who have
formed networks based on terrorist training camps, not only in
Afghanistan, and shared experiences in Algeria, Bosnia and Chechnya,
but also nearer to home, within our countries, have the capacity,
if we allow them, to do real harm to our way of life.

We, the British and the Dutch, and many others in Western
Europe and elsewhere judge the threat to be serious and sustained,
with a proven lethality and the potential to continue for years
to come. The root causes are fuelled by a complex series of intractable
issues and while there has been substantial success and a high
attrition rate against the core of Al Qaida, there are now many
potential terrorists who have no linkage to Al Qaida but are
inspired by its ideology and actions. On the Internet such individuals
can see images of suffering Muslims in various parts of the world:
and they may, from radical preachers, hear an interpretation
of Islam which is violent and demands action by the listener.

This process of radicalisation is now better understood: the
message has an appeal to small numbers in our communities. Bin
Laden's articulation of an extremist ideology has inspired a
broad coalition of groups and there is a widespread covert series
of networks which supports that ideology, with links round the
world and roots almost everywhere.

So how do we respond? Intelligence is key to any successful
counter terrorist strategy but it is not enough and I shall explain
why not. I want first to say something about the nature of intelligence
and its use. What many here will know but is not always well
understood is that intelligence rarely tells you all you want
to know.

I should like to quote from Lord Butler's report into the
"Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction".
"The most important limitation on intelligence is its incompleteness.
Much ingenuity and effort is spent on making secret intelligence
difficult to acquire and hard to analyse... intelligence seldom
acquires the full story... it is often... sporadic and patchy
and, even after analysis may still be at best inferential".

Often difficult decisions need to be made on the basis of
intelligence which is fragmentary and difficult to interpret.
In sum, some is gold, some dross and all of it requires validation,
analysis and assessment. When it is gold it shines and illuminates,
saves lives, protects nations and informs policy. When identified
as dross it needs to be rejected: that may take some confidence.
At the end of the day it requires people of integrity not only
to collect it but also to prioritise, sift, judge and use it.

Intelligence work requires careful training and people who
are shrewd, objective and sensible and can manage the uncertainty
of intelligence. I have met many people like that in the AIVD.

But intelligence is also fragile. It comes from human sources
who risk their lives and whom we have a high moral duty to protect
and from technologies whose effectiveness can be countered by
skilled opponents. That is why there can be no coercion to share
intelligence and why its use in open courts needs to be carefully
handled. In principle we both want to share, and want to see
successful prosecutions. We do not collect intelligence for its
own sake; there is no point. We need to develop and act on it
for the safety of all our citizens.

Given the threat is global, protecting our friends is a way
also of protecting ourselves. So we have a very strong interest
in international co-operation, in all similar services having
both the full legal powers to collect intelligence and the skill
and experience to handle it carefully but if we splash it around
carelessly we shall soon have none of it. So I could never agree
to a compulsory exchange of intelligence as that would risk compromising
valuable sources of intelligence. There would soon be little
to exchange.

To some that presents a real dilemma: to me it's part of the
normal conduct of business, making sure intelligence gets to
the right places and is used while sources are protected. I would
add another dilemma in intelligence work, balancing investigation
and monitoring of those whom we know present a threat, with work
to discover and nullify previously unknown threats.

In the UK, and certainly here in the Netherlands, intelligence
is not only used to help track down and disrupt terrorists. We
are trying more widely to reduce the risks of terrorism. Intelligence
supports wider policies and action to make it more difficult
for terrorists to succeed. That may involve increasing protection
at our key sites or on our key systems to reduce their vulnerability
to attack. It will involve reviewing laws to check whether they
are best-framed to be deployed early on before the terrorist
commits his act.

I am sure you agree with me that containing terrorism in a
democratic society, governed by the rule of law, where civil
rights are of great value, having been acquired with difficulty
over many centuries, is not straightforward. Our courts require
evidence that meets high standards of proof and strong evidence
of a crime having been committed or strong evidence of a conspiracy
to commit such a crime.

This is one of the central dilemmas of countering this sort
of terrorism. We may be confident that an individual or group
is planning an attack but that confidence comes from the sort
of intelligence I described earlier, patchy and fragmentary and
uncertain, to be interpreted and assessed. All too often it falls
short of evidence to support criminal charges to bring an individual
before the courts, the best solution if achievable. Moreover,
as I said earlier, we need to protect fragile sources of intelligence
including human sources.

Being in this position can be uncomfortable for Services such
as the AIVD and mine. We can believe, correctly, that a terrorist
atrocity is being planned but those arrested by the police have
to be released as the plan is too embryonic, too vague to lead
to charges and possibly convictions. Furthermore the intelligence
may be highly sensitive and its exposure would be very damaging
as revealing either the source or our capability.

I think that this is a central dilemma, how to protect our
citizens within the rule of law when intelligence does not amount
to clear cut evidence and when it is fragile. We also, of course,
and I repeat in both our countries and within the EU value civil
liberties and wish to do nothing to damage these hard-fought
for rights. But the world has changed and there needs to be a
debate on whether some erosion of what we all value may be necessary
to improve the chances of our citizens not being blown apart
as they go about their daily lives. Another dilemma.

That brings me on to the roles of government, the commercial
sector and the public. As I said earlier the threat cannot be
countered by intelligence alone or by the police and the security
and intelligence agencies.

It is the responsibility of governments to address the causes,
set the legal frameworks for countering terrorism so that Services
can collect intelligence by all means including through the retention
of data, and ensure the development and implementation both of
pan-government policies and international initiatives to protect
ourselves to the best possible level.

It is also important that governments ensure intelligence
and security agencies and the police have appropriate and effective
legal powers and the resources to maximise the chances of success.
My government has given to my Service and the police very public
support since the attacks, understanding as it does that there
is no such thing as complete security.

The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament
has indicated that it will look at the facts and it will no doubt
wish to review whether we missed anything and the attacks could
have been prevented - but no one in government nor, to be fair,
the media, immediately rushed to the presumption that the July
attacks were our fault. And the public has bombarded our website
with messages of support.

One way of using the intelligence is to develop from it advice
to protect ourselves. Across the UK private companies are working
with my Service and the police to improve their resilience and
strengthen their ability to stay in business in the face of threats
or actual attacks. The narrow definition of the threat to corporate
security has traditionally been focused on crime and fraud: it
needs to be widened to include terrorism, for anticipation of
that to become an integral part of business planning.

And the public. Since 7th July I have been proud of the courage
of Londoners, refusing to be cowed by the attacks on the underground
and buses, resolutely asserting "we are not afraid"
even when they are, and showing determination and toughness in
the face of terror. People took extraordinary efforts to come
to work even when the public transport system was only half-working.

A few days after the first attacks we celebrated in London
the sixty years since the end of the Second World War. Veterans
from that war came into Central London, all of them octogenarians
or more, some proudly wearing their medals, some in wheelchairs,
determined not to be stopped by the current manifestation of
terror from remembering both their contemporaries who died preventing
the terror of fascism from prevailing and from celebrating the
democratic values which we share.

And I am proud that most people understood that the attacks
were on all our citizens, whatever their ethnic origin, and indeed
on 17 citizens of 14 other nations. There has been outspoken
condemnation of terrorism from all quarters of society and many
people have provided information to us and police.

This brings me to another point, the importance of public
communication, of telling the public in broad terms what
the threat is and trusting them to respond sensibly. We all rely
upon public support and co-operation. For many years we have
relied in the UK on the good will, good sense and above all,
the trust of our fellow citizens to cope with the inconvenience
of added security measures, checks and disruption to normal life
of bomb warnings and other alerts.

I would note here a further dilemma. In a society with 24
hour media and the internet the chances are slight that a pre-emptive
security response to a terror threat will go unreported. But
it is often simply impossible to explain what lies behind a public
alert.

I repeat. We need to protect valuable sources of intelligence
without which there would be no warning at all. Compromising
them will achieve little in the short term and, to repeat, will
damage our ability to collect intelligence. At the same time
public safety is the overriding concern and requires the authorities
to act quickly when faced with credible intelligence about a
threat.

Governments face difficult decisions about how best to protect
the public, without preventing normal life going on or damaging
the economy. We want people to continue their way of life and
have confidence to make their own decisions on risk. Given we
in the UK, and I expect the statistics are not so different here,
receive over a hundred pieces of threat intelligence a week,
i.e. intelligence pointing to a terrorist threat, decisions on
what to do are difficult, especially as is so often the case
if the intelligence is piecemeal and uncertain. The repercussions,
another dilemma, of such decisions can be significant.

As I said earlier, international co-operation in the face
of an international threat is essential. The AIVD presidency
of the European Counter-Terrorist Group was particularly important,
in welcoming the Security Services of the ten EU accession
countries into the CTG, and in establishing the link between
the CTG and the EU Sitcen. The UK plans for its Presidency were
drawn up, in consultation with others, before the attacks: they
have not needed to be much amended as, again as I said earlier,
we anticipated further attacks and were not surprised when they
occurred.

In my area we are working through the CTG and have an extensive
range of work in hand. We wish to focus on implementing existing
initiatives rather than producing a fresh raft of them. We need
to engage more extensively with partners outside the EU in order
to put the threat within Europe into a broader context and we
need to build both on the links to Europol and the relationship
with the EU Sitcen.

I know some believe that international, or in this case EU,
work can present a difficult dilemma with regard to national
interests but, in my experience, substantial counter-terrorist
work on a practical, tactical level works successfully every
day on the basis of the relationships of mutual trust to which
I referred at the start of my talk. And at the political and
strategic level there is further important work in progress.

So, in sum, we, the UK, the Netherlands and beyond face a
high level of threat. The scale of the problem we face has become
more apparent as the amount of intelligence collected and shared
has increased. Responding to it is challenging. Intelligence,
the capability to collect it and the competence to handle it
are vital but not sufficient.

The response of governments, the commercial sector and the
public are also of critical importance. Using intelligence, which
may be both fragile and fragmentary, ensuring our legal frameworks
are fit to address threats before they materialise fully, not
through our own actions destroying what we value in our way of
life and what terrorists wish to damage, and balanced public
communication, all present real difficulties.

What I am confident about is that the Dutch people are as
well-equipped as any to handle these dilemmas, and that in the
AIVD you have a highly professional, modern, thoughtful Security
Service doing a difficult job. I applaud them and hope you will
join me in doing so."

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